Doubting Thomas

Redefining Success

Sometimes when an athlete achieves something beyond what all others have achieved, we say that he has re-defined success. In today's column, "Taking the High Ground" Thomas Friedman has re-defined success.

Israel's Lebanon withdrawal was a great strategic success — for reasons that Israel should be studying now.

For one thing Friedman writes:

With that U.N.-approved pullout, Israel completely reversed its situation: It went from holding the strategic and moral low ground, to holding the strategic and moral high ground.

Whether Israel's presence in Lebanon was moral or not is a matter of debate; what is certain though Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon does not mark a strategic advantage. It is always better from a strategic standpoint to fight on your enemy's territory than on your own.
I would argue from a moral standpoint that a country with an obligation to protect its own citizens first, Israel had a good moral case to be in Lebanon. But Friedman clearly doesn't believe that.
Further Friedman argues:

"Sure," say the critics, "But the Palestinians saw the Israeli withdrawal as a sign of weakness and it triggered their Intifada II." Well, maybe the Palestinians did watch too much Hezbollah TV. Their mistake. But I'll tell you who didn't misread Israel's withdrawal: the people it was directed at — Hezbollah, Lebanon and Syria.

Let's see if I get this; 1000 Israelis have been killed because Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon and Friedman just dismisses it with "...maybe the Palestinians did watch too much Hezbollah TV?" Is he agreeing that the claim may be true? Well then how is it a "strategic success?" Friedman's failure to address this claim seriously is irresponsible.
But then the second part of the paragraph compounds his felonies. Oh, but it was success because it was a gesture aimed at Hezbollah, Lebanon and Syria and they understood the message. This may have been an argument if Syria ended its occupation of Lebanon; the Lebanese government moved its troops into southern Lebanon and disarmed Hezbollah; and Hezbollah acted strictly as the political and social organization that its apologists like to pretend that it is. None of these things happened.
Then Friedman quotes one of my favorite experts, Shibley Telhami,

"As soon as Israel withdrew from Lebanon to the internationally recognized border, the legitimacy factor shifted from Hezbollah to Israel. This may seem abstract, but it's not."

That's right. And I'll prove how concrete this 'legitimacy factor' is. After Adi Avitan, Omer Suaed and Binyamin Avraham were kidnapped on October 7, 2000, the UN Security Council held an emergency session to condemn Hezbollah's violation of the international border; Kofi Annan devoted his good offices to help Israel recover its soldiers and Thomas Friedman wrote an angry column denouncing Hezbollah's bad faith.
Actually, none of these things happened. In fact the UN, despite possessing videotapes of the abduction, refused to help Israel claiming that it could not take sides. That's right, a terrorist organization had just violated the UN sanctioned border and kidnapped (and killed) three Israeli soldiers and the UN couldn't even rhetorically bring itself to declare Hezbollah's actions illegitimate, or illegal. That "legitimacy factor" is abstract when it comes to Israel.
That leads to a conclusion:

When you have legitimacy on your side, your people, and the world, support you more, and the other side's people, and the world, support them less.

As I've pointed, using the UN as a baseline, the world does not support Israel more because Israel withdrew from Lebanon.
There was, of course, a point to this stroll down memory lane. Because Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon was such a success:

If you are going to get out of Gaza unilaterally, get out all the way to the U.N.-blessed international border. Do not do it halfway; otherwise you end up with the worst of all worlds: still embroiled in a guerrilla war, still taking casualties, unable to use your superior firepower and getting blamed for everything. Gaza may be easier than Lebanon, too, because unlike Syria and Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt would not have an interest — after an Israeli pullout — in keeping Gaza boiling. Because that would empower Hamas.

Israel did not get out of Lebanon halfway and since that withdrawal Israel has suffered some 180 attacks resulting in fourteen dead and 60 wounded. The UN (and Thomas Friedman) has (have) remained remarkably silent about these violations of the international border.
It's interesting here, that Friedman undermines one of his earlier points. Remember he wrote that Syria got the point now he writes (implicitly) that Syria and Hezbollah have an interest in keeping the Israeli border with Lebanon "boiling." What message have they received? Ah yes no "serious" attacks against Israel. Was the organized attack that killed Lynne Livne, her daughter Atara and 4 others in March 2002 not serious? Was the killing of Haviv Dodan in August 2003, not serious, even though it indicated the Hezbollah was making efforts at modifying anti-aircraft shells to explode nearer to the ground?
Finally he writes that the result of withdrawing from Gaza will be better than the result of withdrawing from Lebanon, because the PA and Egypt will not want to empower Hamas. Where's he been for the past 10 years? Hamas could not have flourished as it did without the full connivance of the PA. Sure, sometimes the PA acted against Hamas, if enough pressure was brought to bear. But the PA enjoyed the deniability it had vis a vis Hamas. It could allow Hamas to operate unmolested and claim that it couldn't take steps because Hamas was too powerful. Arafat ran a police state. If he wanted to crush Hamas he and Dahlan and Rajoub could have. But they didn't want to. As long as there are those to certify the Arafat and PA kosher because they are not Hamas, Arafat and the PA will allow Hamas to operate freely.
I'd like to focus on two items that show the level of Friedman's hypocrisy.
The first I've already referred to. On October 7, 2000, Hezbollah kidnaped three Israeli soldiers. A quick search of his columns showed that not once did he refer to the kidnaping from the time it occurred until the end of the year. Given the importance Friedman attached to the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon you'd think that he'd at least address this breach. (It was a fetish of his. Friedman in 1999 suggested that then-PM Netanyahu might defeat then-Labor Party leader Ehud Barak by unilaterally withdrawing from Lebanon. He figured that there was no move any Israeli leader could make that would be more popular than withdrawing from Lebanon and that if Bibi had done it, it would have reversed his decline in popularity to the point that he'd be able to retain his position.) Not only didn't he comment on the kidnaping; he didn't criticize the UN for failing to act as an honest broker. Nothing.
In fairness, I would point that in a column "Clinton's Syria Memo" (December 1, 2004) Friedman wrote

Israel unilaterally withdrew all its troops from Lebanon last spring in accordance with U.N. Resolution 425. The Lebanon-Israel boundary line Israel withdrew to was personally certified by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. And the U.N. stated clearly that Shabaa Farms -- this little stretch of frontier at the intersection of the Israeli, Lebanese and Syrian borders -- was part of the Syrian Golan Heights, now occupied by Israel. Therefore, it should not have been returned to Lebanon by Israel, but should be returned to Syria as part of any Israeli-Syrian Golan peace deal.

Despite that U.N. verdict, you have encouraged the Lebanese Shiite militia, Hezbollah, to keep launching raids against Israel at Shabaa Farms, claiming it's Lebanese territory, even though your official maps always showed it as part of Syria.

So he acknowledged that Israel observed the international standards but he never condemns Hezbollah or Syria for violating those standards except in general terms.
The second item is related. On March 6, 2002, Serge Schmemann reported that Syria had agreed to back the Friedman publicized, Saudi "peace plan." What Schmemann left out of the article was that Abdullah at the behest of Bashar Assad included the line that Israel was responsible for "...the liberation of the remaining occupied territories in South Lebanon..." This, of course, refers to Shabaa farms and, of course, made a mockery of the peace plan. Did Thomas Friedman write a column and criticize his pal Abdullah for changing the terms of his initiative midstream? No. In fact a month and a half later this is what Friedman wrote in "What Day Is It?" (April 24, 2002):

I'm glad the crown prince has put forward a peace plan. It can only help create possibilities, and those who say it is only p.r. don't know what they're talking about.

But what happened when Syria insisted that Shebaa farms was part of Lebanon? Friedman, after promoting the Abdullah "peace plan," should have been the first to point that by including an obligation for an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Assad and Abdullah were making a mockery of Israel's adherence to the international boundary. Where is the "legitimacy factor" that Israel earned by withdrawing from Lebanon?
This, in fact, is the biggest problem with Israel making peace with its enemies. Will the enemies accept any deal that Israel makes with them? Or will they keep on changing the terms? Will Israel be making peace on a stable playing field or will the goalposts keep on getting moved?
Friedman (and the media generally) does play a role in all this. How are Israeli concessions to be viewed - as a step toward peace that must be matched by the Palestinians (and others in the Arab world) or as a good thing by themselves to be pocketed regardless of whatever new demands of Israel are made or changed? Until now the latter view has held sway and it begs the question what exactly does Israel have to gain by peace agreements? Is there anyone who will say that Israel has made significant concessions and deserves to have its enemies offer some tangible form of recognition - if not non-belligerence - in return?
It is clear that Thomas Friedman does not really believe in peace in the Middle East; he just insists that Israel divest itself of land regardless of consequences. He has shown himself remarkably disinterested in the change of behavior of the Arabs towards Israel. Friedman has no road map to peace and no recipe for success. He is simply a pundit who loves the sound of his own words while trying to be profound.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Doubting Thomas.

Posted by SoccerDad at June 14, 2004 02:19 AM